Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms (LUTS) are a common problem affecting approximately 50% of men over the age of 40. Filling or irritative symptoms include: interruption of urination frequency, urination urgency, Dysuria and Nocturia. Voiding or obstructive symptoms include: a poor stream, hesitancy, terminal dribbling, incomplete voiding and overflow incontinence. Diagnostics of the above symptoms is achieved by referring the patients to undertake a urine flow test. Using the currently available testing method, the patient urinates into a urine flow meter test machine. The results serve as a preliminary diagnostic tool for the physicians.
WO2007/111001 provides an apparatus including: a container that receives urine; and a urine amount measuring device that measures the weight of the urine received by the container; wherein the urine amount measuring device has: a mounting plate, which is a plate on which the container is mounted; a measuring portion that measures the weight of the container mounted on the mounting plate multiple times at given time intervals; and an output portion that outputs a result of the measurement performed by the measuring portion, and the apparatus has a fixing structure that is situated in at least a bottom portion of the container and a mounting face of the mounting plate and that detachably fixes the container on the mounting plate.
The existing urine measurement devices generally posses a plurality of inherent pitfalls:
(i) Conventional testing is not done at physiological conditions;
(ii) The measurement devices are not hygienic since it is practically impossible to urinate only to the container and urine contaminates the measuring device. These devices require cleaning and skilled maintenance to operate properly.
(iii) Some devices have a removable receptacle having no sensors being in sensing vicinity with the urine or other fluidic body sample; these devices did not address the problem of contamination of other parts of the measuring device nor provide accurate urine measurements.
(iv) Weight based devices sample the weight only several times a second hence they are limited in flow sensitivity.
(v) Other devices operate on the principle of creating air pressure changes in a locked chamber due to urine administered to the chamber. These devices are very limited in accuracy and susceptible to temperature changes created by the urine, Atmospheric pressure, and the need to keep the air chamber 100% sealed for the measurement to take place accurately.
Current devices for measuring urine measurements in general are cumbersome, or employ rather inaccurate methodologies for urine measurement. The equipment used requires cleaning and maintenance and is typically operated by professional trained staff, therefore normally available only in hospitals or clinics.